Kiosks in Catania, Confcommercio on the attack: "Unacceptable plan, it lacks everything"

Fourteen new kiosks to be placed around Catania, but no one knows exactly where, why, and by what criteria. This, in summary, is the criticism that Confcommercio Catania directs at the plan presented by the Department of Productive Activities to the City Council last December. A criticism that spares neither the method nor the merit: "Unacceptable," say president Pietro Agen and deputy director Francesco Sorbello without mincing words.

The city currently has 83 kiosks for the sale of food and beverages, eight dedicated to flowers, souvenirs, and tourist information, and 40 newsstands. A widespread commercial heritage, rooted in the neighborhoods, which according to Confcommercio deserves serious planning — not what has landed on the City Council's table.

The issue of the method: the association excluded from the table

Before even delving into the merits of the document, the association's leaders point out the procedure followed by the Department. "On such an important act of territorial and commercial planning — explain Agen and Sorbello — the Department should have initially activated a moment of discussion with the trade organizations. Instead, it preferred to go it alone."

This is not the first time this has happened. According to Confcommercio, the same "unacceptable distraction" has already produced concrete consequences: in the last two years, the administration has been forced to withdraw some regulations from the City Council — including those on outdoor seating and combating tax evasion — precisely due to the absence of a shared discussion with the categories. The issue, they report, has been brought directly to the attention of Mayor Enrico Trantino.

The merit: "It's not a plan, it lacks everything"

If the method is already contested, the document itself is far from convincing. "What has been proposed is not a plan, it lacks everything," attack Agen and Sorbello, who list the gaps with surgical precision: no method outlined for site selection, no report on the individual identified locations, no assessment of the impact in the affected areas, no analysis of the vehicular flows generated, no opinion from the Urban Planning Department.

The number of 14 new kiosks planned, in particular, remains without any justification: "It is not clear how that number was reached," emphasize the association's representatives, who speak of "ritual formulas" in the text of the resolution in the face of a substantial void in the content.

"Commercial urban planning is not done this way," is the conclusion. "There is too much approximation."

The observations of Confcommercio have already been presented during the hearing in the Permanent Urban Planning Council Commission. Now the ball is back in the City Council's court, which is called to decide whether to proceed with a plan that, according to one of the main trade associations in the city, does not yet deserve that name.